The Truth About Traumatic Birth

How you can change your NOW by exploring BACK THEN. You can’t change what happened in your birth. People we meet often ask us, “Why ‘go there’? You can’t change what happened.” They are right. But… you CAN change your understanding of it. And your insights about the issues surrounding it. And your level of […]

Why we need to stop telling women this was the birth they ‘had to have’. 18 years ago, I became mother to a plump little person who emerged from the fiery depths of a traumatic birth, and initiated me into motherhood. The impact of that birth shook me to the core. It rippled out […]

We’e often seen this quote passed around natural birth groups online : “She believed she could….so she did.” And it’s always bothered us. Because while we wish it was true – we wish that determination was enough – unfortunately in our birthing culture, it often isn’t. And because most women don’t know that – the […]

“My body is still different after having three kids but it’s no longer “injured” or “broken”. It’s strong, functional and most of all comfortable!” When we first met Rachael, she was resigning herself to living with constant pain from her first child’s traumatic arrival, after three failed surgeries to repair the damage, and dismissive attitudes […]

Should we shut down negative or traumatic stories about birth, especially when we are expecting? Or are we missing an opportunity to clarify our own needs in preparation for a positive birth? And do we risk silencing women whose voice desperately needs to be heard, in the process? Debby Gould and Melissa Bruijn are founders […]

Many women ask themselves this. But what if you don’t need to accept it, to heal? Debby Gould and Melissa Bruijn are founders of Birthtalk.org, where, for 15 years, they have supported women in healing from a traumatic birth, and guided them towards empowering and positive subsequent births. They are also authors of new book, […]

Sometimes over the past 14 years of running Birthtalk.org we’ve heard well-intentioned people – even some birth workers – ask the wrong questions to a woman who has just shared details about her traumatic birth. (And Melissa from Birthtalk.org had some of those questions asked of her, after her own traumatic birth.) Questions like : “Why didn’t you […]

After a traumatic birth, it can be so hard. You have to deal with the needs of your newborn, and with any older children needing you. You might be floundering under the emotional and physical fallout from the birth. You might be finding that it is incredibly hard to get anyone at all to understand […]

I was completely devastated. I felt like I had failed to go into labour naturally and, while having resisted some interventions, did not achieve the peaceful, calm, un-injured birth I wanted, and had now failed to exclusively breastfeed my child. Rosemary I felt like such a bad mother – every other baby in the ward […]

By the authors of How to Heal a Bad Birth: making sense, making peace and moving on, a gentle guide towards healing after a less-than-great birth. I felt very frustrated when the midwife was acting like I wasn’t trying to feed my baby. Of course I wanted to feed her! Of course I wanted to […]

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